ere] meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal" (Duchamp 141). This, as will be seen, was especially important in the creation or use of Rrose Selavy.
A working definition of the readymade is provided by Naumann who describes them as "commonplace prefabricated objects, isolated from their functional context and, with or without alteration, elevated to the status of art by a mere act of declaration" (39). Duchamp was to say later that the readymade could be seen "as a sort of irony, or an attempt at showing the futility of trying to define art" (quoted in Naumann 41). But, as with any pronouncement from Duchamp, there was nothing definitive about this. Certainly he anticipated the reaction of spectators who would wonder, as indeed they did, why anyone could not take anything and call it art. But an essential point--at least as far as the critique of art production was concerned--was that, in fact, everyone did not do so. The quotidian nature of these objects was all that the non-artist related to until the artist
...